December 24, 2024 • 43 mins
My Favorite reads of 2024!
Support Weird Reads:
Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/jason_white
Or
Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdreader
Email me: weirdreadspodcast@gmail.com
Find Jason elsewhere:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jasonsweirdreadsFind
Join the Weird Reads book club: https://fable.co/club/jasons-weird-reads-book-club-with-jwhite-418694065870?club_type=free#books
Join the discord: https://discord.gg/RTvcHvWuXa
Twitter:
@Jason_White74
@WeirdReadsPod
Intro music created by DudeAwesome from Freesound.
[Freesound - “Scary Haunting Cinematic Style Mix Sound Effects.flac” by DudeAwesome](https://freesound.org/people/DudeAwesome/sounds/490055/
Support Weird Reads:
Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/jason_white
Or
Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdreader
Email me: weirdreadspodcast@gmail.com
Find Jason elsewhere:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jasonsweirdreadsFind
Join the Weird Reads book club: https://fable.co/club/jasons-weird-reads-book-club-with-jwhite-418694065870?club_type=free#books
Join the discord: https://discord.gg/RTvcHvWuXa
Twitter:
@Jason_White74
@WeirdReadsPod
Intro music created by DudeAwesome from Freesound.
[Freesound - “Scary Haunting Cinematic Style Mix Sound Effects.flac” by DudeAwesome](https://freesound.org/people/DudeAwesome/sounds/490055/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube. Welcome, Welcome, My name
is Jason White, and this is Weird Reads. And today
(00:30):
I am going to be discussing my top reads of
two thousand and twenty four. Now, this was an interesting
reading year for me. I had a great year reading.
It wasn't as big as I thought it was going
to be. I remember thinking at the end of last
(00:53):
year that I might be able to do a lot
more reading this year, and I certainly did, but the
numbers don't necessarily show it. I read over eighty books.
I think by the time the year ends, it's going
to be something close to eighty three or four books,
and that I think is the most I've ever read
(01:15):
in one year. So that's good right there. But what's
more remarkable, in my opinion, is that I averaged I
would say, about seventeen thousand words a year before this year,
and this year I did ten thousand pages. Did I
say words before I met pages? If I said words?
(01:38):
But yeah, Instead of that, I read twenty eight thousand
pages over twenty almost twenty nine thousand. I think that
is that's a lot. For me. I know that there's
a lot of people in the fantasy world who can
do that at least half the year they read these
(01:58):
gigantic books, but for me, I don't. But I did
read a lot of gigantic books this year. And that's
why the books, the books themselves is only like eighty
three or eighty four books. Some of those thicker books
were chopped down a little bit. I probably would have
(02:21):
reached maybe even like one hundred books. I don't know.
There are some thick books in there, like over a
thousand pages, and that was insane. That's something I was
kind of afraid of when I worked back when I
worked at the factory. But now I don't necessarily have
to worry about so much. All Right, I'm going to
get into it now because I don't want this to
be too too long. I had trouble narrowing this down
(02:45):
to just ten. So there's twenty books here. There's five
honorable mentions, and then fifteen top reads, so it's basically
a top twenty list. So here we go. The first
my first honorable mention is Drowning in the Drink by
Ridar di Board. This book really delves into alcoholism in
(03:11):
a way that surprised me because I didn't think it
would go to the area as it did, and that's
why it's here. It spoke a truth that really spoke
to me, and I really enjoyed it. I think there
was like the first the first part, the first third
I didn't enjoy quite so much. But once you move
(03:32):
past a certain part, the book takes a lot more
depth and it becomes way more interesting in my opinion,
and it begins to look deeper into addiction and what
it's like to suffer from serious addictions. And that's what
I took away from this book. I recommend all these,
(03:54):
so you're gonna hear me say I highly recommend this
a lot. It's something I tend to do when I'm
ondoing these lists. I can't stop myself either. Okay. Next
up is The Fatal Mind by NJ Gegos NJ She is.
(04:14):
She's a doctor and she works in full time, I
believe in in an emergency room. She's she's a busy woman.
She sees a lot of crazy things. And this book,
The Fatal Mind, by her I read and I really
(04:35):
enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. It It goes into
the emergency room type situations that you might find, you know,
where converters are stuck in certain orifices and whatnot. But
it also has a story and a mystery, not really
a mystery, there's something going on. The story itself is
(04:56):
about a doctor who it's about a doctor and a nurse.
The nurse is married to a man who's a professional
basketball player, and the doctor is somebody who's been experimenting
with a chip that you implant into somebody's skull that
will help them with their migraine headaches. And so you
(05:18):
can only imagine putting chips in people's brains that that
how that could go wrong? And this definitely goes there.
It has a has a pretty interesting ending that I
absolutely loved. Okay, next up is The Folly by Gemma A. Moore.
I really enjoyed this book as well. Gemma Amore is
a favorite author of mine, and The Folly is kind
(05:42):
of her take on Daphne du Maurier. And what I
remember of this book, it's about a woman and her father.
The father just got out of prison for murdering his wife,
which is, you know, his daughter's mother, and he claims
(06:02):
this whole time that he never did it, and she
the daughter, stood by him in that, and of course
certain things come to light. I'm not going to spoil anything,
but it's a very short book, and they end up
moving to this folly because it's free to live there
(06:22):
so long as they take care of the place. They
even get food, so strange things start happening once they
arrive at the folly, and it was just a fun read.
It has kind of a crazy ending, and I really
enjoyed it. I would say it's probably not Gemma Amore's
strongest work. The writing felt maybe kind of rushed a
(06:46):
little bit, a little bit weaker than perhaps other books
by her, but I still really enjoyed it. This one
the next one here I'm currently reading and I'm absolutely loving,
loving it. That's why it's in the Honorable Mentions. After
finishing it, I don't know, I don't know if it
would make the top fifteen or not, but just the
(07:08):
writing alone I think could do that. And that is
you Can't Take It with You by Marcus Hawk. This
is an interesting sort of Christmas vampire tale that it
goes to many different eras in time. It's very short too.
It's only two hundred and twenty two pages, but it's
(07:30):
about this man Nolan, mister Nolan, who's dying. He's a
rich old man and he is dying and he's remembering
his life, and then vampiresm sort of comes into the
story and the story takes one heck of a turn
(07:51):
once that happens. And it's the writing. Like I said,
the writing is really good, especially when you're going through
Owen's life. That in the wrong hands, that could be
really boring, but Marcus Hawk makes it fascinating. I didn't
want to stop reading that, honestly, but thankfully, the writing
(08:12):
is still really good when we get to the vampire
stuff and you just want to keep reading. I don't
know how Marcus does that. I was thinking about inviting
him on the Channel to discuss maybe the mechanics of
his pros, because because he just makes you want to
keep reading and reading, and he could become a favorite
as well. Honestly, I've read two books by him, by
(08:34):
Marcus Hawk, and I've enjoyed both of them. So yeah,
if you're if this comes out before Christmas, you can't
take it with you. By Marcus Hawk, you know, I'm
not there yet, But it feels like this book could
become a sort of like Ebenezer Scrooge with a vampire take.
(08:57):
A theme of that maybe runs through here. I don't know.
I have to finish it before I before I come
to that conclusion, but it's really good. I highly recommend it.
And lastly for the honorable mentions is Snarl by Eric S. Brown.
I love Eric S. Brown's work. They're always just fun
and short. You don't go into an Eric S. Brown
(09:22):
story looking for depth of character. You go for the
action and the craziness, and you get it here. The
only thing I would warn you about is this is
a book about dogs getting this virus that was made
in that was made in a lab somewhere, and so
(09:46):
the viruses is designed to make dogs attack people. It's
sort of like rabies, but maybe more efficient. And there's
like maybe even something supernatural going on here because those dogs,
they their eyes kind of glow red. I really loved this.
It's just fairal craziness. There's a scene with a dog
(10:07):
and human intestines that I'll never be able to erase
from my head. It's truly nasty. So if you like
gore fests, I think Honestly, you're gonna love this book.
It's short. It took me like two days to read it,
and I could have read it in one. And like
I said, the warning though, if you don't like harm
(10:27):
against animals, then maybe skip this one, because there is
a lot of harm towards dogs, because well, dogs are
attacking people, and it's only natural to think that if
something like this happened you would you defend yourself. All right,
now to the top fifteen reads of twenty twenty four.
Now I put some rules on here. No double authors
(10:50):
is one, and no short story collections, and not all
novels were published in twenty twenty four. There's like I
think only maybe one here. Maybe no, there's there's two
two books in here. I think we're published in twenty
twenty four. So here we go. At number fifteen, I
have The Day of the Door by Laurel high Tower.
(11:11):
I really loved this book. It involves like a reality
show that wants to follow a family as they return
back to their old home and the home is reportedly
to be haunted and something tragic happened there a few
(11:33):
years or a few years ago, like maybe a decade ago.
I can't remember how long ago it was, but you know,
something bad happened there and it was kind of well known,
and that's why this this this camera crew wants to
follow them back there. It's it's a good story again,
sort of like with the Gema Amore. I don't think
it's Laurel High Tower's strongest piece, but it was still
(11:56):
really good and I still really enjoyed it. It was
it was you know, when I was going through my
list on Goodreads, I almost forgot to add this. I
just kind of skipped right through it as I was
going through the books, and then I saw it and
I was like, oh no, I have to add that book,
and so I added it. And I kind of want
(12:18):
to move it up this list, but looking at what's there,
I just can't, and so that makes me feel bad.
But it's still here regardless, and I love this book.
It's a great little fun and it's very like the
haunting itself is very aggressive. You're not going to be
(12:38):
disappointed if you read this. If you like haunted house stories,
I don't think anyway, So give it a go. I
really enjoyed it. Right Next up is number fourteen, and
that is tell me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt. This
book is it could have been up higher, but this
book is so dreadful in a good way. It's it's
dreadful with a point, and it's about a transwoman, and
(13:05):
I you know, I don't know if I should talk
about it too much, but it goes into a lot
of politics and from the point of view of a
trans woman, and it's not good. You know, if you
want to understand what it's like to be a trans person,
go read this book. You'll see all the anger and
the hatred that's you know, a result of you know,
(13:30):
not really a result of the anger is the result
of the hatred that's pushed onto this character. And I
think it's very time well timely obviously for very many reasons.
Me talking about this book has probably lost me some
subscribers on YouTube here, but you know, that's just the
(13:53):
way it is. I'm firmly not to get too political here.
But you know, people are people. Why can't we just
live and let live? There's absolutely no reason for a
lot of the craziness that's going on in this world today,
all right. Next up is a book by book tuber
that I was following almost from the beginning. I think
(14:15):
she started her channel before mine, not too much before mine. Now,
I was supposed to talk to her just last weekend,
but I ended up canceling because it's Christmas and everything
is insane. I mean, everyone knows how insane it can
get during the holidays, right, So we've moved our conversation
(14:36):
to later early twenty twenty five. And the book I
read for it was a lot of fun. It's Final Dress,
and I'm of course talking about Regina Saint Clair. This
book is about a young actress who she gets involved
with the local theater as an intern, and it's her
(14:58):
dream to become an actress. But she's you know, her
job is to you know, clean the place, clean the costumes,
get the actors' spaces ready for them, pretty much just
anything they need. And certain situations arise where she's able
(15:20):
to become part of the show that they're all preparing for.
She makes some serious enemies on the way, and the
whole thing ends up turning into a crazy slasher ending.
Let's just leave it at that. It's this book is again,
it's a lot of fun. It's a slow burn. If
(15:42):
you're really interested in the theater, life. Then this book
is for you. It doesn't necessarily mirror these movies, but
because of the content of, you know, working in the theater,
this book Final Dress made me think of movies like
(16:03):
Suspiria and Black Swan. It has a similar feel, mostly,
I guess because of setting. But it's still a great
read and a crazy ending, and I really enjoyed the characters.
The characters kind of flew off the page. Before this,
I'd only read some of Regina's short stories, so it
(16:25):
was a pleasure. It was a pleasure to read this,
and I'm going to read more by Regina look out
for early twenty twenty five. Hopefully we can get that
interview up and going. It would be a lot of fun.
Next up, I have Chasing the Boogie Man by Richard Chismar.
(16:47):
This book I listened to I think before the summer,
and I think Rachel from The Shades of Orange first
recommended this book to me some time ago. I'm talking
years here. She said that it would be right up
my alley, and she wasn't wrong. I really enjoyed this book.
It's it. This book is uh. It's it's like part
(17:11):
biography part fiction. Uh. They have a name for it
and uh, it's like auto fiction. I think it's called
uh and it's it's really interesting. Richard Chismar if you
don't know who he is, he he's behind the Cemetery
Dance magazine, which is almost every single horror writer's dream
(17:31):
to get into. He's also good friends with Stephen King
and they've written some books together, like Gwendy's Button Box
I believe. Anyways, Chasing the Boogeyman is a is a
look at Richard Chismar's life if there was a serial killer, uh,
you know, running around while he was a kid. And
(17:52):
it's based off a lot of true stuff that happened
to him. I think a lot of the serial killer
stuff though didn't happen. But it's it's a great read.
I'm looking forward to reading the second book, hopefully in
this coming year. In that number eleven, I Have Come
with Me by Ronald Malfie. This book is about a
(18:15):
man who loses his wife suddenly. She shot dead in
a mall during a shooting, and of course that's going
to bring about the story itself is about the husband
who survives. He wasn't with her, but that's sort of
(18:35):
the premise of the story because when she goes shopping
to the mall, she's like, come with me, and he said, nah,
I'm going to stay and maybe sleep in a little
bit longer or something like that. And of course that
was the last time he saw her alive. So the
words come with me haunt him throughout the entire novel.
(18:55):
So after her passing, he comes across some of her
belongings that make him question everything he knew about her
while they were married. And this takes you down a
wormhole or a rabbit hole. I should say, of you,
what the hell is going on? What was his wife doing?
(19:19):
And it turns out she was involved with some stuff.
I'm going to leave it at that. This is a
very good book and it could have been up higher,
but I don't know, maybe it should have been, but
I still really loved it, and again I highly recommend it,
especially if you're interested in Ronald Malfie. This might be
a good place to start. It's not necessarily a horror novel.
(19:41):
I would say it's more of a it's more of
a thriller, but it's very haunted. It feels like a
ghost story, even if there are no ghosts, or maybe
there are ghosts. I don't know. You're gonna have to
read it to find out. In at number ten, we're
in the top ten now. It's sick More by Ian Rodgers.
(20:02):
The reason why this is here is because I had
so much fun reading this book. Sycamore is about a
private investigator, a Canadian one at that, and I think
I'm being a little biased here because this book takes
place around the area that I live in and grew
(20:23):
up in. So it was really cool seeing all the
towns mentioned in this book that I know and been to,
and plenty of times have I been there. So it's
not just Toronto. It's like up close to Berry and Aurelia.
And of course Sycamore itself is not a real town.
(20:45):
I but you know, when you're reading books like this,
it's possible, right even though you grew up around here.
So I had to look it up and I was
pretty sure that it was a fictional town because it's
mentioned in the story that's Simore has a population of
twenty five thousand people. And any town that big, would,
(21:08):
you know, would be fairly well known. It's not just
like a two thousand population of two thousand, you know,
a small town that you never heard of, even though
you've probably driven through it like a handful of times.
But Sycamore is about a private investigator who gets called
he's he's from Toronto, but he gets called to Sycamore
(21:31):
to investigate a missing husband case. Now there's a lot
going on in this book and a lot of lore
regarding sort of what Ian Rodgers is building towards, and
that is his black Lands. The black Lands are like
these portals that have opened up all across the earth.
(21:52):
They're not very common. Let's just say there's ten of
them something like that. And what comes through these portals
our monsters. And so these portals have to be guarded,
and you know, to say the least, they have to
be guarded. So this case may or may not involve
(22:16):
the black Lands. I don't really want to explain the
book too much more because that would give things away.
It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of banter
in this book, and that was another thing that made
this book so much fun. So definitely check out Sycamore
by Ian Rodgers. I mean, the cover, the cover is
just awesome as all hell. Next up is House and
(22:39):
this is at number nine, House of Bad Memories by
Dave Michael David Wilson. This book, it was it was surprising.
Michael David Wilson. If you don't know, he is the
host of the This is Horror podcast. He's talked to
almost all all the big horror writers out there, including
(23:03):
Dean Kuntz. The only one he seemed to he seems
to be unable to get on the show is Stephen King.
But that one right there is very rare. You know.
Stephen King is unfortunately he's winding things down in life,
and that's very sad, honestly in my opinion. But you know,
(23:25):
it is what it is. He's like seventy seven years old.
He's a realist and he knows what's coming. We all do. Anyways.
The House of Bad Memories is a crazy story that
that's about a man who gets caught up in these
(23:46):
weird circumstances involving his sister. And this book kind of
has a bit of a slow start too, but once
it gets going, once certain things happen in this book,
the tension just keeps getting It keeps getting more and more.
The tension just keeps building and building until you almost
can't take it anymore. And this book keeps changing too,
(24:09):
like the tone. This book is one of the craziest
books I've ever read, and it works completely. I absolutely
loved this book. I can't wait to read more by
Michael David Wilson, and I highly you got to check
this book out like it's it's absolutely it's bonkers. Once
it gets going, it's bonkers, and it it hits you
(24:33):
in the fields sometimes too, So definitely check that out.
Next up is a at number eight. Here is The
Mind Worms by Nicholas Kaufman. Now this book is book
three and the Laura. The Laura I want to say
(24:55):
Palmer every time. I want to say Palmer. I should
really write this stuff down, but anyways, we'll just say Laura.
The the the series is about it's a medical examiner. Uh,
you could almost see this this series as a TV show.
(25:16):
It's Laura Powell. I'm certain it's Laura Powell. I could
be wrong. Anyways, she's a medical examiner, so it's it's
it's a science based series of investigations. And The Mine
Worms is one of the most gorious of the three
that are out there. I don't know if Nicholas Kaufman
(25:38):
is going to be making anymore. I keep mentioning this
in my videos and he never answers me. But I
know Book four right now is not planned, at least
I don't think it is. But Mineworms is is like
it's if the serious word end, This is a good
way to end it, because it's like an apex, you know,
(25:59):
a climate almost of not events. It's just the events
within the novel. You can read these separately, you don't
need to read them in order. And I would honestly
say read the Mind Worms because it's, uh, well, it's
it's kind of crazy at about well, the title suggests
what it's about. It's sort of like these worms controlling
(26:20):
people's minds and leading to circumstances. We'll just say that.
You know, when you're hungry and you just can't, you
can't say you can't. Have you ever been that hungry
or it seems like you're never full? Well, just imagine
if that hunger is directed towards your loved ones. Let's
(26:43):
leave it at that. The Mine Worms takes Laurel Power,
Powell and uh and to some extreme areas that made
me almost gag in a couple of parts. All right,
Next up at number seven, His Incidents Around the House
by Josh Mailerman. This book is this book is something else.
(27:07):
Let me tell you. Now, I listen to this on audio,
and I would recommend doing that because now I guess
that depends, because I thought I would hate it. The
narrator narrates the voice as it probably should be narrated,
because the narrator of the story itself is told by
(27:27):
like a seven year old girl. And that's the biggest
problem with this book and especially the audiobook, is because
the narrator does a really good, I mean, an excellent,
excellent job at doing this, but she sounds too young.
But the voice itself, I think also sounds too young.
Instead of a seven or eight year old girl, you
(27:47):
have what sounds more like a four year old girl.
And you know, that's only four or three or four
years difference, but in the world of you know, childhood,
that's a huge difference. That's that's an eternity of difference.
So take that with a grain of salt. It's still
spooky as hell, especially the audiobook. There's also a part
in the middle that kind of dragged for me. Now here.
(28:10):
I am having this on my top ten in my
top ten and I'm like, I'm tearing it a new asshole.
I don't mean to. It's it's an excellent book. There's
some really creepy parts, but there's parts that also kind
of bothered me, but the parts that worked stand out.
So it's about this little girl who has another mommy,
(28:32):
think of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but the other mommy is
nowhere near what Coraline is and this book doesn't even
reflect Coraline at all. This is completely different. The other
mommy is more like a haunting or is it like
a demon? You need to read it to find out.
But there's some The first I would say quarter is
(28:55):
really creepy. Then you get to that slow sort of man,
it's not really slow, it's just repetitive middle part, and
then the ending, the ending is it's crazy and it's
very dark. And at number six I read my first
Rachel Harrison book, and coincidentally it was the first one
she published, and so at number six here I have
(29:16):
the Return. As aforementioned by Rachel Harrison, this book I
found to be a lot of fun because it has
the one trope that I really love, and that is
when somebody goes missing, not just for a couple of days,
but like months or even years, and then they come
back when they come back changed And this has that
(29:41):
a young woman she goes hiking one day. She was
having an argument with her boyfriend or husband, I think
it's her husband, and one way she would calm down
after a fight like that would be to go for
a hike. But she never goes gets home. So a
few years later they they pretty much in absent In absentia,
(30:05):
she's declared dead. And then I think like some time
after that, she just returns on one of her friend's porches,
and so as you would expect, everyone's like, where the
hell were you? But she won't talk about it. So
her and her friends decide to do a weekend uh
(30:28):
you know, get away, uh you know, to live like
the old times, to catch up. And this is where
things go terribly wrong. It's an awesome book. I loved
this book so much, and I have read more by
Rachel Harrison, but only one book. That's two I read
from her in one year, so that's actually pretty good
(30:50):
for you know, unless it's Steve. I read a lot
of Stephen King this year. I'm not gonna lie. I
mean a lot of Stephen King. But other than that,
you know, if I read two books by you in
one years, you as an author, and then that's pretty good.
All right. Next up was a first time author for me,
and it won't be the last. I'm looking forward to
(31:11):
reading more. But this is at number five. Here is
Razor Blade tears By s a Cosby My God, I
left this book. This book is so crazy. It reminded
me a lot of like a nineteen eighties action film
with some present time present time situations. I guess you
(31:38):
wouldn't catch like the themes in this book in a
nineteen eighties action film. So you got like some of
the movements that are moving today and gaining ground, and
then you have the people fighting against them, because you know,
people need to bitch about everything. So I'll just get
(31:58):
into what the story is about. Two fathers. They don't
really know each other, but both are ex convicts and
they're just trying to live their lives. They both have
a son, and their sons ended up getting married, and
like I said, they don't really know each other, these
two fathers. But one day the two sons are murdered
(32:23):
on the street and it looks like a hate crime.
So the two fathers get together and throughout the whole
book they throughout their lives before this murder took place,
they were kind of harder on their sons for being gay,
and then after their murders they come to regret the
(32:43):
way they treated their sons, and they come their story
arc is to sort of heal, to forgive themselves maybe,
and to look at their sons in a different light.
And of course a lot of violence. There's a lot
of violence. You know, they really fuck some people up
in this book, and it's great to watch, honestly, And
(33:07):
in the number four. I read this recently and it
challenged me and challenged me in a good way. Though,
And I'm talking about Inkernit by Richard Thomas. This book
it's hard to talk about because it's it's as I
(33:28):
mentioned in videos before, it is a little dense, but
it's not so dense that you're going to be alienated
just by the language. It's more the content. Honestly, you're
wondering what the hell is going on a lot of
the time, and so you have there's you could almost
call this a collection of three longer short stories, or
(33:50):
maybe even three novella's or novel atte length stories that
are all connected because it's all it is separate. So
the first story is about an old man who lives
in the Arctic, and he's a shaman and what he's
a sin eater. What he does is when people die
(34:10):
or animals too, he'll take in their essence. I don't
know if it's spirit or what, but he pretty much
eats their sins and then barfs it back out and
purifies the spirit so they can go on. It's like
a purification ritual. And the second part or there's this
(34:33):
rift too where monsters come out of and he's sort
of guarding this rift from the monsters that can come through.
The second as you go into that rift, and you
follow one of the monsters as they plod through a
pretty long period of time where the monster itself is
a female. They have a little young lings, and it's
(34:57):
really hard to read this part because because of all
the shit that this poor creature goes through, all the
heartbreaking stuff that this creature goes through. And then we
return back to the village where Sebastian from the first
story has died. I don't want to spoil too much here.
I kind of spoiled that. But he's like his apprentice,
(35:22):
and he has a different approach to the sin eating.
He doesn't want to absolve people of their sins, but
he wants to do something else with that. It's a
very excellent read, and like I said, it's hard to
talk about. It's very hard to talk about. It's one
of the more original pieces of fiction I have ever read.
(35:42):
And that's why it's so up here. It's not just
the vision of this book, it's the way it makes
you feel. My god, this book will make you feel.
And the language itself it like melted like butter on
(36:02):
my brain. It's it's such an odd little book. I
have to read it again. I need I need to
read this one again. I need to know more. And
uh uh yeah, like totally. Man, we're in the top
five here, and that's why this is here. It's I
(36:23):
I remember when I started it, I didn't think it
was going to make the top ten list at all.
But by the time I was done, I was like,
my god, this book has to be in the top ten,
all right, top three now. At the beginning of the
year I read, I was gifted an advanced copy of
gwendolen Kist's The Haunting of Elkwood, which is such a
(36:46):
good book. My god, this book is. It's incredible, honestly, Uh,
it's it's it's about at it's not about a haunted house,
and it's not about a haunted town. It's about a
haunted community. And this community is blocked off from the
rest of reality. You can't go in it. It's like
(37:07):
almost like a misty fog that surrounds the town and
only certain people I think can go into it, and
that's the people who come from there. And so this
has been happening for years now, and it's kind of
like a well known thing and people are mystified by
the memory. And there's this again, there's a there's a
camera crew who wants to who wants to investigate it,
(37:31):
and the people who survived it. One of them is
drawn back to it and she and her ghosts because
she has some ghosts. She decides to go back because
her sister is trapped there and she wants to see
if she can rescue her. So I'll leave it at that.
It's a fascinating books. It's smothered, it's smothered in grays
(37:56):
and deeper shades of gray and sadness, and there's also
some funny stuff in here. It's it's a full book.
And when I first read it, I thought it was
going to make number one, but I read a couple
of books more that really blew my mind, and so
it has to be here at number three. But at
(38:18):
number two is a book that's been out since like
twenty fifteen or sixteen, and I, you know, everyone when
this book came out, everyone was talking about it, and
I wanted to read it too, but I never did,
not until this year of twenty twenty four, and that
is A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. This
was the year of television crews following people into their
(38:43):
houses because of fucked up shit that happened in the past,
and this book is no different. I'm sure most people
have read this, maybe not everyone, but I know a
lot of people have read this book, and I came
to it very late. Paul Tremblay is quickly becoming a
favorite of mine, and hew Head Full of Ghosts is
(39:04):
one reason why. This book is about two sisters. One
of them claimed to have been possessed when they were younger,
and so that's what the film crew is about. They
want to investigate, so they go to the younger sister
to talk to her and to make their movie and whatnot.
And you know, the film crew was there during the
(39:27):
possession and they did a TV show and it was
very popular. I don't want to talk about this book
too much because the ending. The ending had me staring
like at the wall for like a good ten minutes
as I tried to gather exactly what it was I
was feeling. It was a punch to the gut. It
(39:51):
was a serious punch to the gut, and like a
knee to the face as you were bending down to
clench your gut. That was just punched. So it Yeah,
good book, man, excellent book and number one. I am
cheating on this one a little bit, just a little bit.
Number one book here took me all year almost to read,
(40:15):
and that's because it's it's basically seven books in one.
But of course I'm talking about The Dark Tower by
Stephen King. Now I'm putting the seventh book here as
like a place marker for what I want, but I
want to include the entire series because when you read
these books almost back to back, it feels like one
(40:38):
giant novel in a sense I marveled in past videos
and podcast episodes how Stephen King was able to return
to that world and keep the voice not only of
the characters, but of just the craziness. He doesn't let up.
And this series, of course, took him a big majority
(41:01):
of his life thirty years or whatever to write, and
that's another reason why it's kind of complexing to me,
how he was able to return each time and make
it feel like you were just reading the same book,
but continuing the sega to a certain extent. Now I
have my favorites and my lesser favorites in this series.
(41:25):
I might do a tier episode where I tear them.
I don't know or rank them. We shall see, because
I'm still unsure. But the placeholder here, the Dark Tower,
which is book seven of the Dark Tower series, is
the one that affected me the most, and I think
(41:46):
for good reason. It's where we were going. There's some
heartbreaking things that happen, and then there's some stuff that
make you think and stare at the wall for different
reasons than i'd full of ghosts, You're staring at the
wall this time with a sense of awe and wonder,
and this book is this book is gonna stain me
(42:10):
for the rest of my life. All right. That is
my top ten, not top ten. It was supposed to
be top ten, but I couldn't top fifteen with five
honorable mentions, so technically my top twenty reads of twenty
twenty four. Thank you so much for listening and watching,
(42:31):
and I will catch you guys the next time. So
keep keep being safe, keep being weird, and most importantly,
keep being creative. And I'll catch you guys next time.
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube. Welcome, Welcome, My name
is Jason White, and this is Weird Reads. And today
(00:30):
I am going to be discussing my top reads of
two thousand and twenty four. Now, this was an interesting
reading year for me. I had a great year reading.
It wasn't as big as I thought it was going
to be. I remember thinking at the end of last
(00:53):
year that I might be able to do a lot
more reading this year, and I certainly did, but the
numbers don't necessarily show it. I read over eighty books.
I think by the time the year ends, it's going
to be something close to eighty three or four books,
and that I think is the most I've ever read
(01:15):
in one year. So that's good right there. But what's
more remarkable, in my opinion, is that I averaged I
would say, about seventeen thousand words a year before this year,
and this year I did ten thousand pages. Did I
say words before I met pages? If I said words?
(01:38):
But yeah, Instead of that, I read twenty eight thousand
pages over twenty almost twenty nine thousand. I think that
is that's a lot. For me. I know that there's
a lot of people in the fantasy world who can
do that at least half the year they read these
(01:58):
gigantic books, but for me, I don't. But I did
read a lot of gigantic books this year. And that's
why the books, the books themselves is only like eighty
three or eighty four books. Some of those thicker books
were chopped down a little bit. I probably would have
(02:21):
reached maybe even like one hundred books. I don't know.
There are some thick books in there, like over a
thousand pages, and that was insane. That's something I was
kind of afraid of when I worked back when I
worked at the factory. But now I don't necessarily have
to worry about so much. All Right, I'm going to
get into it now because I don't want this to
be too too long. I had trouble narrowing this down
(02:45):
to just ten. So there's twenty books here. There's five
honorable mentions, and then fifteen top reads, so it's basically
a top twenty list. So here we go. The first
my first honorable mention is Drowning in the Drink by
Ridar di Board. This book really delves into alcoholism in
(03:11):
a way that surprised me because I didn't think it
would go to the area as it did, and that's
why it's here. It spoke a truth that really spoke
to me, and I really enjoyed it. I think there
was like the first the first part, the first third
I didn't enjoy quite so much. But once you move
(03:32):
past a certain part, the book takes a lot more
depth and it becomes way more interesting in my opinion,
and it begins to look deeper into addiction and what
it's like to suffer from serious addictions. And that's what
I took away from this book. I recommend all these,
(03:54):
so you're gonna hear me say I highly recommend this
a lot. It's something I tend to do when I'm
ondoing these lists. I can't stop myself either. Okay. Next
up is The Fatal Mind by NJ Gegos NJ She is.
(04:14):
She's a doctor and she works in full time, I
believe in in an emergency room. She's she's a busy woman.
She sees a lot of crazy things. And this book,
The Fatal Mind, by her I read and I really
(04:35):
enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. It It goes into
the emergency room type situations that you might find, you know,
where converters are stuck in certain orifices and whatnot. But
it also has a story and a mystery, not really
a mystery, there's something going on. The story itself is
(04:56):
about a doctor who it's about a doctor and a nurse.
The nurse is married to a man who's a professional
basketball player, and the doctor is somebody who's been experimenting
with a chip that you implant into somebody's skull that
will help them with their migraine headaches. And so you
(05:18):
can only imagine putting chips in people's brains that that
how that could go wrong? And this definitely goes there.
It has a has a pretty interesting ending that I
absolutely loved. Okay, next up is The Folly by Gemma A. Moore.
I really enjoyed this book as well. Gemma Amore is
a favorite author of mine, and The Folly is kind
(05:42):
of her take on Daphne du Maurier. And what I
remember of this book, it's about a woman and her father.
The father just got out of prison for murdering his wife,
which is, you know, his daughter's mother, and he claims
(06:02):
this whole time that he never did it, and she
the daughter, stood by him in that, and of course
certain things come to light. I'm not going to spoil anything,
but it's a very short book, and they end up
moving to this folly because it's free to live there
(06:22):
so long as they take care of the place. They
even get food, so strange things start happening once they
arrive at the folly, and it was just a fun read.
It has kind of a crazy ending, and I really
enjoyed it. I would say it's probably not Gemma Amore's
strongest work. The writing felt maybe kind of rushed a
(06:46):
little bit, a little bit weaker than perhaps other books
by her, but I still really enjoyed it. This one
the next one here I'm currently reading and I'm absolutely loving,
loving it. That's why it's in the Honorable Mentions. After
finishing it, I don't know, I don't know if it
would make the top fifteen or not, but just the
(07:08):
writing alone I think could do that. And that is
you Can't Take It with You by Marcus Hawk. This
is an interesting sort of Christmas vampire tale that it
goes to many different eras in time. It's very short too.
It's only two hundred and twenty two pages, but it's
(07:30):
about this man Nolan, mister Nolan, who's dying. He's a
rich old man and he is dying and he's remembering
his life, and then vampiresm sort of comes into the
story and the story takes one heck of a turn
(07:51):
once that happens. And it's the writing. Like I said,
the writing is really good, especially when you're going through
Owen's life. That in the wrong hands, that could be
really boring, but Marcus Hawk makes it fascinating. I didn't
want to stop reading that, honestly, but thankfully, the writing
(08:12):
is still really good when we get to the vampire
stuff and you just want to keep reading. I don't
know how Marcus does that. I was thinking about inviting
him on the Channel to discuss maybe the mechanics of
his pros, because because he just makes you want to
keep reading and reading, and he could become a favorite
as well. Honestly, I've read two books by him, by
(08:34):
Marcus Hawk, and I've enjoyed both of them. So yeah,
if you're if this comes out before Christmas, you can't
take it with you. By Marcus Hawk, you know, I'm
not there yet, But it feels like this book could
become a sort of like Ebenezer Scrooge with a vampire take.
(08:57):
A theme of that maybe runs through here. I don't know.
I have to finish it before I before I come
to that conclusion, but it's really good. I highly recommend it.
And lastly for the honorable mentions is Snarl by Eric S. Brown.
I love Eric S. Brown's work. They're always just fun
and short. You don't go into an Eric S. Brown
(09:22):
story looking for depth of character. You go for the
action and the craziness, and you get it here. The
only thing I would warn you about is this is
a book about dogs getting this virus that was made
in that was made in a lab somewhere, and so
(09:46):
the viruses is designed to make dogs attack people. It's
sort of like rabies, but maybe more efficient. And there's
like maybe even something supernatural going on here because those dogs,
they their eyes kind of glow red. I really loved this.
It's just fairal craziness. There's a scene with a dog
(10:07):
and human intestines that I'll never be able to erase
from my head. It's truly nasty. So if you like
gore fests, I think Honestly, you're gonna love this book.
It's short. It took me like two days to read it,
and I could have read it in one. And like
I said, the warning though, if you don't like harm
(10:27):
against animals, then maybe skip this one, because there is
a lot of harm towards dogs, because well, dogs are
attacking people, and it's only natural to think that if
something like this happened you would you defend yourself. All right,
now to the top fifteen reads of twenty twenty four.
Now I put some rules on here. No double authors
(10:50):
is one, and no short story collections, and not all
novels were published in twenty twenty four. There's like I
think only maybe one here. Maybe no, there's there's two
two books in here. I think we're published in twenty
twenty four. So here we go. At number fifteen, I
have The Day of the Door by Laurel high Tower.
(11:11):
I really loved this book. It involves like a reality
show that wants to follow a family as they return
back to their old home and the home is reportedly
to be haunted and something tragic happened there a few
(11:33):
years or a few years ago, like maybe a decade ago.
I can't remember how long ago it was, but you know,
something bad happened there and it was kind of well known,
and that's why this this this camera crew wants to
follow them back there. It's it's a good story again,
sort of like with the Gema Amore. I don't think
it's Laurel High Tower's strongest piece, but it was still
(11:56):
really good and I still really enjoyed it. It was
it was you know, when I was going through my
list on Goodreads, I almost forgot to add this. I
just kind of skipped right through it as I was
going through the books, and then I saw it and
I was like, oh no, I have to add that book,
and so I added it. And I kind of want
(12:18):
to move it up this list, but looking at what's there,
I just can't, and so that makes me feel bad.
But it's still here regardless, and I love this book.
It's a great little fun and it's very like the
haunting itself is very aggressive. You're not going to be
(12:38):
disappointed if you read this. If you like haunted house stories,
I don't think anyway, So give it a go. I
really enjoyed it. Right Next up is number fourteen, and
that is tell me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt. This
book is it could have been up higher, but this
book is so dreadful in a good way. It's it's
dreadful with a point, and it's about a transwoman, and
(13:05):
I you know, I don't know if I should talk
about it too much, but it goes into a lot
of politics and from the point of view of a
trans woman, and it's not good. You know, if you
want to understand what it's like to be a trans person,
go read this book. You'll see all the anger and
the hatred that's you know, a result of you know,
(13:30):
not really a result of the anger is the result
of the hatred that's pushed onto this character. And I
think it's very time well timely obviously for very many reasons.
Me talking about this book has probably lost me some
subscribers on YouTube here, but you know, that's just the
(13:53):
way it is. I'm firmly not to get too political here.
But you know, people are people. Why can't we just
live and let live? There's absolutely no reason for a
lot of the craziness that's going on in this world today,
all right. Next up is a book by book tuber
that I was following almost from the beginning. I think
(14:15):
she started her channel before mine, not too much before mine. Now,
I was supposed to talk to her just last weekend,
but I ended up canceling because it's Christmas and everything
is insane. I mean, everyone knows how insane it can
get during the holidays, right, So we've moved our conversation
(14:36):
to later early twenty twenty five. And the book I
read for it was a lot of fun. It's Final Dress,
and I'm of course talking about Regina Saint Clair. This
book is about a young actress who she gets involved
with the local theater as an intern, and it's her
(14:58):
dream to become an actress. But she's you know, her
job is to you know, clean the place, clean the costumes,
get the actors' spaces ready for them, pretty much just
anything they need. And certain situations arise where she's able
(15:20):
to become part of the show that they're all preparing for.
She makes some serious enemies on the way, and the
whole thing ends up turning into a crazy slasher ending.
Let's just leave it at that. It's this book is again,
it's a lot of fun. It's a slow burn. If
(15:42):
you're really interested in the theater, life. Then this book
is for you. It doesn't necessarily mirror these movies, but
because of the content of, you know, working in the theater,
this book Final Dress made me think of movies like
(16:03):
Suspiria and Black Swan. It has a similar feel, mostly,
I guess because of setting. But it's still a great
read and a crazy ending, and I really enjoyed the characters.
The characters kind of flew off the page. Before this,
I'd only read some of Regina's short stories, so it
(16:25):
was a pleasure. It was a pleasure to read this,
and I'm going to read more by Regina look out
for early twenty twenty five. Hopefully we can get that
interview up and going. It would be a lot of fun.
Next up, I have Chasing the Boogie Man by Richard Chismar.
(16:47):
This book I listened to I think before the summer,
and I think Rachel from The Shades of Orange first
recommended this book to me some time ago. I'm talking
years here. She said that it would be right up
my alley, and she wasn't wrong. I really enjoyed this book.
It's it. This book is uh. It's it's like part
(17:11):
biography part fiction. Uh. They have a name for it
and uh, it's like auto fiction. I think it's called
uh and it's it's really interesting. Richard Chismar if you
don't know who he is, he he's behind the Cemetery
Dance magazine, which is almost every single horror writer's dream
(17:31):
to get into. He's also good friends with Stephen King
and they've written some books together, like Gwendy's Button Box
I believe. Anyways, Chasing the Boogeyman is a is a
look at Richard Chismar's life if there was a serial killer, uh,
you know, running around while he was a kid. And
(17:52):
it's based off a lot of true stuff that happened
to him. I think a lot of the serial killer
stuff though didn't happen. But it's it's a great read.
I'm looking forward to reading the second book, hopefully in
this coming year. In that number eleven, I Have Come
with Me by Ronald Malfie. This book is about a
(18:15):
man who loses his wife suddenly. She shot dead in
a mall during a shooting, and of course that's going
to bring about the story itself is about the husband
who survives. He wasn't with her, but that's sort of
(18:35):
the premise of the story because when she goes shopping
to the mall, she's like, come with me, and he said, nah,
I'm going to stay and maybe sleep in a little
bit longer or something like that. And of course that
was the last time he saw her alive. So the
words come with me haunt him throughout the entire novel.
(18:55):
So after her passing, he comes across some of her
belongings that make him question everything he knew about her
while they were married. And this takes you down a
wormhole or a rabbit hole. I should say, of you,
what the hell is going on? What was his wife doing?
(19:19):
And it turns out she was involved with some stuff.
I'm going to leave it at that. This is a
very good book and it could have been up higher,
but I don't know, maybe it should have been, but
I still really loved it, and again I highly recommend it,
especially if you're interested in Ronald Malfie. This might be
a good place to start. It's not necessarily a horror novel.
(19:41):
I would say it's more of a it's more of
a thriller, but it's very haunted. It feels like a
ghost story, even if there are no ghosts, or maybe
there are ghosts. I don't know. You're gonna have to
read it to find out. In at number ten, we're
in the top ten now. It's sick More by Ian Rodgers.
(20:02):
The reason why this is here is because I had
so much fun reading this book. Sycamore is about a
private investigator, a Canadian one at that, and I think
I'm being a little biased here because this book takes
place around the area that I live in and grew
(20:23):
up in. So it was really cool seeing all the
towns mentioned in this book that I know and been to,
and plenty of times have I been there. So it's
not just Toronto. It's like up close to Berry and Aurelia.
And of course Sycamore itself is not a real town.
(20:45):
I but you know, when you're reading books like this,
it's possible, right even though you grew up around here.
So I had to look it up and I was
pretty sure that it was a fictional town because it's
mentioned in the story that's Simore has a population of
twenty five thousand people. And any town that big, would,
(21:08):
you know, would be fairly well known. It's not just
like a two thousand population of two thousand, you know,
a small town that you never heard of, even though
you've probably driven through it like a handful of times.
But Sycamore is about a private investigator who gets called
he's he's from Toronto, but he gets called to Sycamore
(21:31):
to investigate a missing husband case. Now there's a lot
going on in this book and a lot of lore
regarding sort of what Ian Rodgers is building towards, and
that is his black Lands. The black Lands are like
these portals that have opened up all across the earth.
(21:52):
They're not very common. Let's just say there's ten of
them something like that. And what comes through these portals
our monsters. And so these portals have to be guarded,
and you know, to say the least, they have to
be guarded. So this case may or may not involve
(22:16):
the black Lands. I don't really want to explain the
book too much more because that would give things away.
It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of banter
in this book, and that was another thing that made
this book so much fun. So definitely check out Sycamore
by Ian Rodgers. I mean, the cover, the cover is
just awesome as all hell. Next up is House and
(22:39):
this is at number nine, House of Bad Memories by
Dave Michael David Wilson. This book, it was it was surprising.
Michael David Wilson. If you don't know, he is the
host of the This is Horror podcast. He's talked to
almost all all the big horror writers out there, including
(23:03):
Dean Kuntz. The only one he seemed to he seems
to be unable to get on the show is Stephen King.
But that one right there is very rare. You know.
Stephen King is unfortunately he's winding things down in life,
and that's very sad, honestly in my opinion. But you know,
(23:25):
it is what it is. He's like seventy seven years old.
He's a realist and he knows what's coming. We all do. Anyways.
The House of Bad Memories is a crazy story that
that's about a man who gets caught up in these
(23:46):
weird circumstances involving his sister. And this book kind of
has a bit of a slow start too, but once
it gets going, once certain things happen in this book,
the tension just keeps getting It keeps getting more and more.
The tension just keeps building and building until you almost
can't take it anymore. And this book keeps changing too,
(24:09):
like the tone. This book is one of the craziest
books I've ever read, and it works completely. I absolutely
loved this book. I can't wait to read more by
Michael David Wilson, and I highly you got to check
this book out like it's it's absolutely it's bonkers. Once
it gets going, it's bonkers, and it it hits you
(24:33):
in the fields sometimes too, So definitely check that out.
Next up is a at number eight. Here is The
Mind Worms by Nicholas Kaufman. Now this book is book
three and the Laura. The Laura I want to say
(24:55):
Palmer every time. I want to say Palmer. I should
really write this stuff down, but anyways, we'll just say Laura.
The the the series is about it's a medical examiner. Uh,
you could almost see this this series as a TV show.
(25:16):
It's Laura Powell. I'm certain it's Laura Powell. I could
be wrong. Anyways, she's a medical examiner, so it's it's
it's a science based series of investigations. And The Mine
Worms is one of the most gorious of the three
that are out there. I don't know if Nicholas Kaufman
(25:38):
is going to be making anymore. I keep mentioning this
in my videos and he never answers me. But I
know Book four right now is not planned, at least
I don't think it is. But Mineworms is is like
it's if the serious word end, This is a good
way to end it, because it's like an apex, you know,
(25:59):
a climate almost of not events. It's just the events
within the novel. You can read these separately, you don't
need to read them in order. And I would honestly
say read the Mind Worms because it's, uh, well, it's
it's kind of crazy at about well, the title suggests
what it's about. It's sort of like these worms controlling
(26:20):
people's minds and leading to circumstances. We'll just say that.
You know, when you're hungry and you just can't, you
can't say you can't. Have you ever been that hungry
or it seems like you're never full? Well, just imagine
if that hunger is directed towards your loved ones. Let's
(26:43):
leave it at that. The Mine Worms takes Laurel Power,
Powell and uh and to some extreme areas that made
me almost gag in a couple of parts. All right,
Next up at number seven, His Incidents Around the House
by Josh Mailerman. This book is this book is something else.
(27:07):
Let me tell you. Now, I listen to this on audio,
and I would recommend doing that because now I guess
that depends, because I thought I would hate it. The
narrator narrates the voice as it probably should be narrated,
because the narrator of the story itself is told by
(27:27):
like a seven year old girl. And that's the biggest
problem with this book and especially the audiobook, is because
the narrator does a really good, I mean, an excellent,
excellent job at doing this, but she sounds too young.
But the voice itself, I think also sounds too young.
Instead of a seven or eight year old girl, you
(27:47):
have what sounds more like a four year old girl.
And you know, that's only four or three or four
years difference, but in the world of you know, childhood,
that's a huge difference. That's that's an eternity of difference.
So take that with a grain of salt. It's still
spooky as hell, especially the audiobook. There's also a part
in the middle that kind of dragged for me. Now here.
(28:10):
I am having this on my top ten in my
top ten and I'm like, I'm tearing it a new asshole.
I don't mean to. It's it's an excellent book. There's
some really creepy parts, but there's parts that also kind
of bothered me, but the parts that worked stand out.
So it's about this little girl who has another mommy,
(28:32):
think of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but the other mommy is
nowhere near what Coraline is and this book doesn't even
reflect Coraline at all. This is completely different. The other
mommy is more like a haunting or is it like
a demon? You need to read it to find out.
But there's some The first I would say quarter is
(28:55):
really creepy. Then you get to that slow sort of man,
it's not really slow, it's just repetitive middle part, and
then the ending, the ending is it's crazy and it's
very dark. And at number six I read my first
Rachel Harrison book, and coincidentally it was the first one
she published, and so at number six here I have
(29:16):
the Return. As aforementioned by Rachel Harrison, this book I
found to be a lot of fun because it has
the one trope that I really love, and that is
when somebody goes missing, not just for a couple of days,
but like months or even years, and then they come
back when they come back changed And this has that
(29:41):
a young woman she goes hiking one day. She was
having an argument with her boyfriend or husband, I think
it's her husband, and one way she would calm down
after a fight like that would be to go for
a hike. But she never goes gets home. So a
few years later they they pretty much in absent In absentia,
(30:05):
she's declared dead. And then I think like some time
after that, she just returns on one of her friend's porches,
and so as you would expect, everyone's like, where the
hell were you? But she won't talk about it. So
her and her friends decide to do a weekend uh
(30:28):
you know, get away, uh you know, to live like
the old times, to catch up. And this is where
things go terribly wrong. It's an awesome book. I loved
this book so much, and I have read more by
Rachel Harrison, but only one book. That's two I read
from her in one year, so that's actually pretty good
(30:50):
for you know, unless it's Steve. I read a lot
of Stephen King this year. I'm not gonna lie. I
mean a lot of Stephen King. But other than that,
you know, if I read two books by you in
one years, you as an author, and then that's pretty good.
All right. Next up was a first time author for me,
and it won't be the last. I'm looking forward to
(31:11):
reading more. But this is at number five. Here is
Razor Blade tears By s a Cosby My God, I
left this book. This book is so crazy. It reminded
me a lot of like a nineteen eighties action film
with some present time present time situations. I guess you
(31:38):
wouldn't catch like the themes in this book in a
nineteen eighties action film. So you got like some of
the movements that are moving today and gaining ground, and
then you have the people fighting against them, because you know,
people need to bitch about everything. So I'll just get
(31:58):
into what the story is about. Two fathers. They don't
really know each other, but both are ex convicts and
they're just trying to live their lives. They both have
a son, and their sons ended up getting married, and
like I said, they don't really know each other, these
two fathers. But one day the two sons are murdered
(32:23):
on the street and it looks like a hate crime.
So the two fathers get together and throughout the whole
book they throughout their lives before this murder took place,
they were kind of harder on their sons for being gay,
and then after their murders they come to regret the
(32:43):
way they treated their sons, and they come their story
arc is to sort of heal, to forgive themselves maybe,
and to look at their sons in a different light.
And of course a lot of violence. There's a lot
of violence. You know, they really fuck some people up
in this book, and it's great to watch, honestly, And
(33:07):
in the number four. I read this recently and it
challenged me and challenged me in a good way. Though,
And I'm talking about Inkernit by Richard Thomas. This book
it's hard to talk about because it's it's as I
(33:28):
mentioned in videos before, it is a little dense, but
it's not so dense that you're going to be alienated
just by the language. It's more the content. Honestly, you're
wondering what the hell is going on a lot of
the time, and so you have there's you could almost
call this a collection of three longer short stories, or
(33:50):
maybe even three novella's or novel atte length stories that
are all connected because it's all it is separate. So
the first story is about an old man who lives
in the Arctic, and he's a shaman and what he's
a sin eater. What he does is when people die
(34:10):
or animals too, he'll take in their essence. I don't
know if it's spirit or what, but he pretty much
eats their sins and then barfs it back out and
purifies the spirit so they can go on. It's like
a purification ritual. And the second part or there's this
(34:33):
rift too where monsters come out of and he's sort
of guarding this rift from the monsters that can come through.
The second as you go into that rift, and you
follow one of the monsters as they plod through a
pretty long period of time where the monster itself is
a female. They have a little young lings, and it's
(34:57):
really hard to read this part because because of all
the shit that this poor creature goes through, all the
heartbreaking stuff that this creature goes through. And then we
return back to the village where Sebastian from the first
story has died. I don't want to spoil too much here.
I kind of spoiled that. But he's like his apprentice,
(35:22):
and he has a different approach to the sin eating.
He doesn't want to absolve people of their sins, but
he wants to do something else with that. It's a
very excellent read, and like I said, it's hard to
talk about. It's very hard to talk about. It's one
of the more original pieces of fiction I have ever read.
(35:42):
And that's why it's so up here. It's not just
the vision of this book, it's the way it makes
you feel. My god, this book will make you feel.
And the language itself it like melted like butter on
(36:02):
my brain. It's it's such an odd little book. I
have to read it again. I need I need to
read this one again. I need to know more. And
uh uh yeah, like totally. Man, we're in the top
five here, and that's why this is here. It's I
(36:23):
I remember when I started it, I didn't think it
was going to make the top ten list at all.
But by the time I was done, I was like,
my god, this book has to be in the top ten,
all right, top three now. At the beginning of the
year I read, I was gifted an advanced copy of
gwendolen Kist's The Haunting of Elkwood, which is such a
(36:46):
good book. My god, this book is. It's incredible, honestly, Uh,
it's it's it's about at it's not about a haunted house,
and it's not about a haunted town. It's about a
haunted community. And this community is blocked off from the
rest of reality. You can't go in it. It's like
(37:07):
almost like a misty fog that surrounds the town and
only certain people I think can go into it, and
that's the people who come from there. And so this
has been happening for years now, and it's kind of
like a well known thing and people are mystified by
the memory. And there's this again, there's a there's a
camera crew who wants to who wants to investigate it,
(37:31):
and the people who survived it. One of them is
drawn back to it and she and her ghosts because
she has some ghosts. She decides to go back because
her sister is trapped there and she wants to see
if she can rescue her. So I'll leave it at that.
It's a fascinating books. It's smothered, it's smothered in grays
(37:56):
and deeper shades of gray and sadness, and there's also
some funny stuff in here. It's it's a full book.
And when I first read it, I thought it was
going to make number one, but I read a couple
of books more that really blew my mind, and so
it has to be here at number three. But at
(38:18):
number two is a book that's been out since like
twenty fifteen or sixteen, and I, you know, everyone when
this book came out, everyone was talking about it, and
I wanted to read it too, but I never did,
not until this year of twenty twenty four, and that
is A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. This
was the year of television crews following people into their
(38:43):
houses because of fucked up shit that happened in the past,
and this book is no different. I'm sure most people
have read this, maybe not everyone, but I know a
lot of people have read this book, and I came
to it very late. Paul Tremblay is quickly becoming a
favorite of mine, and hew Head Full of Ghosts is
(39:04):
one reason why. This book is about two sisters. One
of them claimed to have been possessed when they were younger,
and so that's what the film crew is about. They
want to investigate, so they go to the younger sister
to talk to her and to make their movie and whatnot.
And you know, the film crew was there during the
(39:27):
possession and they did a TV show and it was
very popular. I don't want to talk about this book
too much because the ending. The ending had me staring
like at the wall for like a good ten minutes
as I tried to gather exactly what it was I
was feeling. It was a punch to the gut. It
(39:51):
was a serious punch to the gut, and like a
knee to the face as you were bending down to
clench your gut. That was just punched. So it Yeah,
good book, man, excellent book and number one. I am
cheating on this one a little bit, just a little bit.
Number one book here took me all year almost to read,
(40:15):
and that's because it's it's basically seven books in one.
But of course I'm talking about The Dark Tower by
Stephen King. Now I'm putting the seventh book here as
like a place marker for what I want, but I
want to include the entire series because when you read
these books almost back to back, it feels like one
(40:38):
giant novel in a sense I marveled in past videos
and podcast episodes how Stephen King was able to return
to that world and keep the voice not only of
the characters, but of just the craziness. He doesn't let up.
And this series, of course, took him a big majority
(41:01):
of his life thirty years or whatever to write, and
that's another reason why it's kind of complexing to me,
how he was able to return each time and make
it feel like you were just reading the same book,
but continuing the sega to a certain extent. Now I
have my favorites and my lesser favorites in this series.
(41:25):
I might do a tier episode where I tear them.
I don't know or rank them. We shall see, because
I'm still unsure. But the placeholder here, the Dark Tower,
which is book seven of the Dark Tower series, is
the one that affected me the most, and I think
(41:46):
for good reason. It's where we were going. There's some
heartbreaking things that happen, and then there's some stuff that
make you think and stare at the wall for different
reasons than i'd full of ghosts, You're staring at the
wall this time with a sense of awe and wonder,
and this book is this book is gonna stain me
(42:10):
for the rest of my life. All right. That is
my top ten, not top ten. It was supposed to
be top ten, but I couldn't top fifteen with five
honorable mentions, so technically my top twenty reads of twenty
twenty four. Thank you so much for listening and watching,
(42:31):
and I will catch you guys the next time. So
keep keep being safe, keep being weird, and most importantly,
keep being creative. And I'll catch you guys next time.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.